What's stopping America from going all-in on heat pumps?
climatedrift.substack.com
climatedrift.substack.com
Ductless systems averaged around $29,000, but quotes ranged from under $20,000 to over $40,000. Ducted systems averaged $38,000, with bids spanning from under $25,000 to over $50,000—an astonishing 100% difference from low to high for both systems.
This is a non-starter for tens of millions of households. Not just the range, but the low end of the range, which approaches the cost of a new car. Lots of people will look at this, and say, "No thanks, I can get 2 or 3 window-mounted ACs at Walmart for a fraction of the price."
Four years ago when we got a heat pump/mini split the cost was at the low end of the range, but sweetened with a state loan program with 0% interest for the life of the loan. No brainer. I doubt those incentives exist in the current rate environment.
Two separate systems.
That's about 1/2 of the "minimum" cited above, and it's for 2 buildings.
This is so similar to the EV panic.
I'm not sure if the article is LLM slop, I only scanned it. But I agree with the main point that it's not the tech holding this back, it's the US population.
I also bought a 2 year old used Nissan Leaf (w/ 15K miles) for $15K. I charge it at home.
Neither of these purchases broke the bank. And both of them will pay for themselves over a few years. Maybe American's should learn to multiply. Then the cost of something over time will make it's adoption a clear winner.
The resistance to electrification is one of the US's biggest self inflicted wounds (after actual gunshot wounds of course).
how much did you save on your bills a month?
It's hard to judge with the mini-split, since the house didn't have A/C at all before, and the ADU is new, so there is no history to compare.
In the next few years though, I intend to install solar and batteries. This takes a little longer to pay off, but it's getting shorter all the time. Utilitys, especially SDG&E here in San Diego, have been raising rates at ~12%/year for quite a while.
I hope to be totally energy self sufficient in another 1-3 years (including operating the car).
I would expect this prospect to be very appealing to conservative rural residents, and yet for some reason there is a huge support for continuing to be dependent on oil companies.
My combined gas and electric bills don't even reach $200/mo during peak months.
I'd expect that is why most people don't switch.
New installs, sure I think it makes sense.
Especially once complete independence from an electric utility is achieved.
I totally agree with you that the time to install this stuff is at time of construction. Unfortunately real estate developers don't really care about how much it costs to _operate_ a building, they only care about building it as cheaply as possible, and selling for as high a price as possible.
The cost to increase insulation, add solar and batteries, all electric appliances, would all pay for itself over a decade or so.
Most homes in the US are occupied for many decades (not all by the same owner) so the savings are substantial over the lifetime of the building.
Of course, the consumer's savings are the electric utilities losses, and we know who has the pull in policy creation...
And many of these things, like heat pumps last twice that at best, so you have to account for depreciation.
It's more economically sound to invest the money or pay off your auto loan / credit card bills.
It makes no sense to switch when you have a working system, only to replace a failing one or during construction.
See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44425004 for a breakdown of one scenario.
Again, I do think this tech is great, but I see no upside in switching when you have a working system.
I am in a conservative rural district right now. Here's the math: 20% are at or below the federal poverty line, and of the remainder there are a huge number of people on fixed incomes or sitting on major credit card or vehicle debts (people own trucks or farm equipment, often related to work). They have very little wiggle room on any major investments, not just clean energy.
Yet people understand the value of solar. There are households and even some farms with solar arrays here. They also know utilities are jacking up prices despite huge wind farms and hydro nearby (this is in part due to local crypto mining ventures that sprouted up 10 years ago, which will likely be joined by AI farms in the coming years.)
People aren't staying away solar because there is "huge support" for fossil fuels. They are staying away from solar (and heat pumps) because they simply cannot afford the cost. They don't have the cash on hand, they will never qualify for loans, and in many cases they are dealing with existing debt or emergency costs.
Comparing the cost of a heat pump to window AC units is missing the point since, as you're well aware, a heat pump provides both cooling and heating. A homeowner who is considering a heat pump is almost certainly replacing a gas furnace and/or a central AC system. When you factor in the cost of replacing two systems with one, plus higher effiency gains/lower operating costs, and money back on rebates, heat pumps can be cost competitive.
Massachusetts (where this study was done) is still offering generous incentives as well as 0% financing through the Mass Save program.
Further even if you undersize your heat pump to only 70% of the max heating power, then you still will get out 99% from your heating from the heat pump on average.
We have whole-house backup batteries, which we can charge with a generator for longer outages (we also have solar in summer, but the sun doesn't get above the trees in the winter). The batteries/generator would have to be much bigger to replace that furnace with a heat pump. They will power the propane furnace (mainly the forced-air part). About 1/3 of our heating is firewood, but during deep cold spells, it's hard to keep it above ~55°F in rooms other than the one with the fireplace without help from the furnace.
We do plan to install a mini-split system before too long, and use that when we do have electricity, relegating the central propane furnace to power outages. We already use an evaporative cooler for cooling, which uses far less electricity than AC. We'll only use the AC function of the mini-splits when we have a lot of smoke from wildfires in the area (evaporative coolers blow in lots of outside air).
https://www.ashrae.org/file%20library/technical%20resources/...
I'm doing it to minimize the growth of utility cost in the future. The only reason it's not wide spread is inertia and poorly informed consumers.
This only reason this works for me is a large investment in insulation.
Investing in insulation, renewable energy, and heat pumps. That is all it takes.
With that said, depending on your latitude and climate, non electric backup heat might be necessary (to your point, a fossil gas furnace). Depends on your home envelope thermal efficiency (how long can it maintain heat without additional input or solely with solar input during the day), electrical utility reliability, etc.
This second, the large capital cost from ground excavation or drilling, etc, means heat pumps really only make sense and will see adoption in new houses, not existing houses. At least in places where it actually gets cold regularly. I expect much stronger adoption where simple above ground units are feasible.
So for heat pumps to work in the northern parts of the USA (say, Minnesota/Wisconsin/etc) they cannot just be pumping heat from the air. They require geothermal loops.
So that's the two problems I described: weather a heat pump will work for your region of the USA is a complex issue. It's safer and easier to just pick a normal heating system. This uncertainty makes choosing heat pumps less likely in marginal climates like, say, Iowa. Of course this doesn't apply to places, like, say, Texas, which only get brief minor cold. Adoption of heat pumps there is straightforwards.
The follow on is that if you still want a heat pump in the cold parts of the USA you need a ground loop heat pump. And that has a very high initial capital cost, which means they basically only get put in during initial construction, not as add-ons to existing houses.
95% of US population are in temperate climate zones.
Saying "it's a complex issue" is the same kind of ignorant self-induced panic as worrying about EV range for a single digit percentage of long trips.
> The follow on is that if you still want a heat pump in the cold parts of the USA you need a ground loop heat pump.
No, you don't. You just need to accept that your payback period on a system will be longer than in a more temperate climate. It might pay back for itself in 7 years instead of 5, for example.
But saying, "It's not a complex issue at all." is an extremely provincial mindset. For California? Yes. But there's more to the USA than the coasts and south.
And re: capital cost, because of the required in-ground loops the payback is much, much longer than air units which require no excavation. Still, a great choice for new construction if there's a normal heating backup and you can roll in the extra cost to the bank loan. Not so attractive for existing houses.
Anyone saying "heat pumps don't work in the cold" is perpetuating unfortunate misinformation that will slow the adoption curve.
You're assuming I have no lived experience and am just making stuff up. But I live here in the cold and I rented a house heated by a heat pump in my cold region of the USA. The winter experience was quite bad as it struggled with colder snaps and it was an in-ground loop!. And I can't be the only one with this bad experience with heat pumps in their past.
I'm getting sick of people extrapolating their temperate climate experiences to cold climates and painting me as an ignorant at best spreader of misinformation. It's the other way around. I actually live here. I actually have direct experience. Do you? Or are you just repeating the hopeful beliefs that support your opinion you read somewhere? I want heat pumps to work too. They're great tech and save energy. It just doesn't match reality.
You also literally just explained that having two heating systems is sometimes required while saying that heat pumps work by themselves. I'm not sure how to take such a contradictory statement.
When you are making repairs on your house over $10k, and you interview the top contractors in your area with great reviews, very few 0 star reviews. They all say this technology is not really practical.
It’s really hard knowing that everyone is having a great experience having their home fixed by these contractors that all advise you not to do something, to turn around and hire someone who is registered as a Daikin reseller and has an unacceptable number of 1 star reviews.
Heat pump companies have to have decent partners in the field willing to sell their product before consumers are really going to risk spending so much money on their product.
I assume in Canada you needed a geo-thermal loop.
That runs about $30k avg, you'll break even in 10 years.
Investing that money would prove financially better.
Even a 2% low-risk investment would net $6,421 in 10 years.
Also it seems they have a lifespan of 15-20 years so you have to account for depreciation of the system.
It doesn't make much sense to switch, new installations or replacing failing systems are the only scenarios I see where it does.
It’s good down to -30C
although you'll get heatwaves sometimes, it's not worth it overall.
similarly, although these may be more efficient than what you already have, it costs money upfront to install new stuff. money people don't have.